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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Examples of weirdness from inlaws.

356 replies

lovelydoggies · 17/01/2015 23:56

Not sure if I'm posting in the right section but I'm talking about weird, unreasonable or plain bonkers behaviour from Mils, Fils, Sils....the lot.
I could write a book about mine, I don't know where to start.
One example comes to mind of Mil....she totally refused to spell any of my children's names right. When I used to tell her all she would say was "does it really matter"Shock.....
I mean what do you say to that. Confused

OP posts:
Stravapalava · 16/05/2019 09:47

My MIL is the queen of these.

Went out for lunch to the pub and forgot to bring baby DD's tommee tippee type cup, so went to Boots and bought another one. Asked the barman for some tap water to fill it with and MIL jumped in to ask him to wash the brand new, fresh out of the packaging cup out first as "we don't want bits of plastic floating in the water." Obviously, I would have washed it anyway, but not because I thought there might be some random bits of plastic in it!

We were bad parents for booking a holiday to the Algarve a couple of years ago because "look what happened to Madeleine McCann" Confused Yeah, because that was purely down to the choice of holiday destination...

I'm a bad person for putting a certain fruit in a fruit salad on a buffet because one of her cousins is allergic to it. The cousin wasn't even there. Also, I was bad for giving my DDs this fruit in case they were allergic to it too. They're not.

I'm sure I'll be back - there's loads more!

Bentley111 · 16/05/2019 09:54

Reading with interest, some of these are nuts... Coco and Royal WTAF!!!

My friends and I nn MIL "Satan" because she truly is batshit.

I have mentioned this on here a few times but my absolute favourite was her asking me what I had done to cause my mc and was I concerned I was infertile... whilst bleeding through double pads and on the sofa in agony...

10 days before our wedding, she called various family members (including mine) and told them I'd had a change of heart and the wedding was off.

She rearranged my whole house when I went home to visit my family, including changing the curtains in our bedroom and threw out the lovely Egyptian cotton bedlinen I had and made up our bed with years old, random ugly bedlinen from her house.

My DF died when I was young and as a result I was really close to my DGF. A proper "grandads girl." When he passed away, I was heartbroken. We went to drop something down to MILs the next day and we found her hysterically sobbing because he'd died.
She had never met him

HBStowe · 16/05/2019 10:01

These are so nuts. I’m so grateful for my lovely, normal, sensible mother in law.

MummyParanoia101 · 16/05/2019 10:32

@Witsendagain Shock That's unbelievable! What did you say when she announced you weren't having a natural birth?! I'd have said well I am and you're coming nowhere near this child except when I choose to allow it and that's because I said so!

MummyParanoia101 · 16/05/2019 10:44

@Streamside Teddy Blair Hehehe!!

Jebuschristchocolatebar · 16/05/2019 11:02

When my sil announced she was pregnant my mil said “finally, a real grandchild”. I have two kids.
For Christmas last year she gave me a travel mug with no lid from the charity shop so I could put pens in it
She bought my then 4 year old some weird sex filled manga comics and an encyclopedia of knives.
When We were on holidays they changed the letterbox and door knocker on my front door because they didn’t like them.
My fil used to let himself into our house when we were out and watch tv.

UpsydaisyandIgglePiggleareatit · 16/05/2019 11:43

Wow. Just wow. Some of these are mad!! How can certain in laws expect to have a good relationship with their family members when they treat the person they’ve chosen so badly?!

Mine are quite tame but...
Ex MIL on being told I had been diagnosed with MH issues ‘isn’t it funny how some people can just cope with things and others cant’ proceeded to be told that No, it’s actually a chemical imbalance and not just the inability to cope!
On hearing exH had cheated and we were trying to work through it (mistake!) knowing who it was he’d cheated with said ‘oh I always thought you’d end up with her’
ExFIL turned up at the house hours after I had DD (home birth) we had asked before hand if people could let us know they wanted to come over. Let him anyway but reminded he needed to let us know first. He then decided to turn up with some distant relatives of his. We were all sleeping including exH so ignored the door. They started hammering on it, constantly ringing the bell. Baby woke up and I refused to answer the door. ExH got a huge mouthful of abuse for that one.
ExHs parents aren’t together and he constantly bad mouths exMIL in front of his DC and my DD.
He would constantly palm off his unwanted crap on us. Literally broken appliances and old dirty towels?!

I think my Nan (dad’s mum) was probably a crappy MIL to my Dads partners after my mum as she would always go on about how great my mum was to them! Confused Mum has said my Nan would do and say odd things but she just let it go over her head... They are great friends still now and my Dad doesn’t see much of her and my parents have been split for nearly 30 years! Although my mum did go nuts at her once for folding down the buggy with me still in it and putting it in the boot.... she thought it was perfectly safe and didn’t want to wake me! 😂

Currently MIL is odd...I posted before how she’s been banned from visiting our house as she completely takes over, moves things...pushes me out of the way if I’m standing near a cupboard she wants to access rather than saying excuse me... barges into our bedroom in the morning demanding to wash the sheets... when I first moved in with DH she was really off with me and treated me like I was his mistress and proceeded to wash one top several times so I couldn’t use the washing machine. DH has given a massive telling off about it and she has tried to mellow out but we go visit her instead.(then I can leave if it gets too much) He’s mostly great about telling her to stop the odd stuff but she doesn’t listen half the time and says things like ‘well I want to do this so I’m going to’ Hmm
Since I’ve had DD2 she’s been a bit better. She did recently phone my DH to say she was having a heart attack.... she was having chest pains, which turned out to be just a general body ache after knee surgery...I said to DH why didn’t she call a bloody ambulance if she thought that, not him who was 5 hours away...!
My ExBIL was lovely though and my eldest DD loves him and his wife and their kids and spends a lot of time with them!

UpsydaisyandIgglePiggleareatit · 16/05/2019 11:50

@Streamside

Is it bad that I would have loved that as a present?! Grin
Another exFIL one... opening presents on Christmas Day... opened some perfume from exFIL and his partner... ExSIL started laughing I said what is it? She said Oh I saw them when they were wrapping... that was a free gift they got and said they were going to give it to someone they didn’t like...!

Streamside · 16/05/2019 12:43

I'm 5 foot and the teddy Blair baby suit was at least 6 foot long.This was before the day of onesies but it's certainly something I'll never forget.

TheCatInTheSquare · 16/05/2019 12:56

MIL seems to have delusions that she was a Super Mama, these delusions aren't supported by her 3 children. Grin

Didn't give our daughter a Christmas or birthday card or present.

Argued that she knew better about how much of our daughter's hair needed cutting after I refused to allow morw to be cut.

Once wanted us to sell our place and the 3 of us move in with her and my husband's siblings. Confused

Tunnocks34 · 16/05/2019 13:19

My MIL threatened to fall social services on my and OH for neglect because we wouldn’t take our 3 month old to the GP for mild nappy rash. We caught her trying to make an appointment for him with her own GP as well.

Thought/thinks breastfeeding is disgusting and when I fed my sons, she would say ‘urgh titty juice’

Cried her eyes out, and told us we’d end up splitting up when we got pregnant with our third. Told us to terminate as we couldn’t cope with having a third child. No clue why she thinks this and DH and I have got a fantastic relationship, we’re fairly well off, own our own house and car, both have good careers, and our two existing sons are well behaved, content and bright. We don’t struggle, ask for help. We don’t even ask her to babysit! Whilst this goes on, she is simultaneously encouraging SIL to come off the pill and get herself pregnant to her on/off boyfriend. They already have a daughter but he doesn’t want anymore children. They break up regularly due to his recreational drug use. SIL, although a brilliant mum, has severe depression which mean she often struggles to look after her daughter and MIL is essentially the third parent!

CreekyBeaky · 16/05/2019 13:23

MIL is normally fine but has occasional random moments of being batshit. Example, trying to force DS who was 4 months old at the time to eat, yes eat, an ice cube. The ice cube she tried to give him had previously been in her G&T before she fished it out. She thought he looked hot so needed it. She’s an intelligent woman, had a long and distinguished medical career, I really don’t know what comes over her sometimes.

Confusedbeetle · 16/05/2019 13:30

I'm a mother in law to 4, 2 sons in law and 2 daughters in law. I am really saddened by this post. Sad by some of the posts, but sadder that op wants a list of awful things. I think you would be a bit put out if a woman wanted a list of all the awful DIL or SIL happenings

Gamble66 · 16/05/2019 13:57

Oh get over yourself we are allowed to vent and tell our stories

UpsydaisyandIgglePiggleareatit · 16/05/2019 13:57

@confusedbeetle

OP was over 4 years ago... this was resurrected recently but she didn’t say she wanted awful things or just about MILs she said ‘weird, unreasonable or plain bonkers behaviour from Mils, Fils, Sils....the lot’
PPs have said there are sites where people post about DILs.
People aren’t just listing things they don’t like... it’s bad experiences they’ve had. These people have done those things, some people posted about their own mums but said their MILs were great. Sometimes people just need to vent when crappy things happen to them and this post provided a place to do that.
I’m sure you’re a lovely MIL and your SiLs and DILs appreciate that but a lot of people aren’t so lucky and find it frustrating that the person they love’s family can treat them in such a way.

BettyJune07 · 16/05/2019 14:20

Okay so my MIL is normally fine but we are very very different kinds of people.

When my DC were babies (twins) she had draws full of clothes for them at her house but they never slept over, and I would always provide spares if she babysat them. This carried on until they were 2 so she was constantly getting rid of brand new clothes and replacing them.

Told her friends I would want a big fancy over the top wedding because I love attention, we had 17 people including us and our DC..

My FIL would come round and turn my thermostat down because we didn't need it so high in an old cottage with two small DC apparently in SNOW.

MIL also told DC she would pick them up from school every Thursday (didn't consult me on this) and never did.

We're quite low contact now despite them living 5 minutes away in the same town. Nothing bad happened, just drifted.

DarlingNikita · 16/05/2019 14:26

When I was pregnant with DD1 MIL told some people that I had died , but the baby was safe and she was going to live with DH and bring up the baby with him. I was 11 weeks pregnant btw.

Coco, you win not just this thread but the whole of Mumsnet, in perpetuity, I think.

floribunda18 · 16/05/2019 14:37

MIL sometimes comments on how closely DD2 resembles SIL. They are not actually blood relations as SIL and DH were adopted at birth from separate families.

MarieIVanArkleStinks · 16/05/2019 14:54

I'm in the MDL , because I'm a Mil. You lot will be too one day. I'm sure you will be all perfectly sane and lovely though

You're seeing a thread bashing in-laws.

I'm seeing horrific stories of the things some of them did to lead UP to their bashing. To rub someone's face in it when they've just had a miscarriage is beyond appalling. And the thought of spending special times like Christmas with such people is too horrible to contemplate.

If I started typing about mine, I fear I'd be unable to stop. Commiserations to everyone else afflicted with this curse.

Minai · 16/05/2019 15:03

Mil had me photoshopped out of my own wedding photos as she wanted photos that were ‘just her family’. Seriously.

Also about a week after giving birth to my first baby, during which I very nearly died and was quite traumatised about it she started pestering me about when I would be having another baby as it wouldn’t be good for my son to grow up as an only child. ODFOD.

MummyParanoia101 · 16/05/2019 15:10

Mini - ShockShockShockShockGin

Liverpool52 · 16/05/2019 16:11

Too many to go into ranging from odd to downright nasty but one of the things I laugh at now (mainly because I'm a lot older and less tolerant of their shit) is every time we went to see them in the early years of our marriage, they'd present my husband with a bottle of his favourite spirit and me with a packet of dishclothes. And expected me to fall over myself in gratitude. When I finally plucked up the courage to say "thanks, but the drawer I keep them in is too rammed to take anymore because I don't clean that often" my mil spent the rest of her visit muttering under her breath about not being able to do anything right. This was a couple of months after they really rudely rejected a Christmas present we'd bought them. But they are very much "we will do what we like because we are the parents and you will do what you're told because you are children".

Ariesgirl1988 · 16/05/2019 16:14

Reading through these posts and just wow Shock some people are so nasty! So glad I get on well with my BiL and SiL, but BiL family are crazy my poor sister!

Those of you arguing over mocking people who clearly have MH please just shush! As someone with a MH illness it's no excuse for nasty behaviour, even when I've lashed out occaisionally I've apologised and felt terrible for saying stuff and still do thankfully I've been forgiven but some of the nasty behaviour described on here in no way represents mental illness they're just plain spiteful and abusive the only explanation is a personality disorder and that's a different kettle of fish Hmm

TixieLix · 16/05/2019 17:08

When we were first dating, I used to visit my then bf at his home and he would drive me home later in his car (which was a bit of an old banger). One day I was there and bf's car wouldn't start. He asked his dad if he could borrow his car to take me home (I lived about 30mins away). FiL said yes no problem. MiL piped up to say "the car is half mine, and I say no". I was gobsmacked! My bf did borrow the car and my FiL later apologised for the way MiL had spoken. She made various other snide comments to me over the years. She was one of those women who lived through her DCs and thought I was taking her precious boy away from her.

She was very upset that we chose to have our wedding reception in a church hall. MiL liked to show off to other people and wanted us to have it at some posh expensive venue (even though she wasn't contributing any money towards it).

She turned up at my wedding wearing an almost white dress. I had the last laugh because lots of people were talking about her behind her back and saying how inappropriate it was.

When DH and I had our first dance, we'd forgotten to tell the DJ what song we wanted played. Instead of checking with us she decided for herself what it would be. Totally screwed up the wedding video because it was the same song that we'd chosen for the intro.

After the photos were taken, we should have gone inside to welcome all our guests into the reception, but she organised for us to go into the sit down area and have loads of extra photos with her 'great aunt Mary', so all our guests had to be welcomed in by my parents instead. Little things, but they all added up to become one huge irritation.

When we had difficulty conceiving, we had tests done and it was found that DH had an extremely low sperm count. She insisted on bringing round magazine articles she'd found about female infertility.

MummyParanoia101 · 16/05/2019 19:59

@Tixie Did you not correct her and point out that it was her son who had the fertility issues? I couldn't possibly let that one slide!!